Parkrun comments giving me the rage

Park run is a charity if that's what yiu mean by volunteer led. However news flash! All charities in the UK are volunteer led. My local hospice which has an income of tens of millions and employs consultants, doctors and nurses to provide palliative care is volunteer led

park run has income of 11 million, employs
62 staff abd pays its CEO over £150,000 a year. It has all the resources necessary to comply with the law, it just doesn't want to because they just don't think women matter as saving around virtue signalling fur men larping as women

@JudyBlumesBlubber
It started as purely volunteer led, but has since had millions of pounds worth of public funding via Sports England and other grants.

It is not the Olympics ✅
it is not competitive ✅
and it is not able to be policed ✅

Got it.

As well as ‘female people should accept some negative sex discrimination for the overall good’ ✅

This debate is being driven by people who don’t fundamentally understand how Parkrun works in that it’s an amateur arrangement to encourage a bit of exercise, supervised by volunteers and providing untold benefits to participants. The beauty is that you can travel the world and turn up to a local park at 9am for a walk/run/wheel.

It is not a professional company running 5km runs and lining the pockets of the shareholders. These outfits could change their approach to registration to vet birth sex if they wanted to. They have paid people to do this.

My local Parkrun sees a huge drop off in women between 40-55 at which they start to come back, often walking the distance. I was a late starter to running and the ability to compare my timings to others my age was a real motivation as I walked, then walked/ran, then finally ran the entire distance.

I agree we could throw the baby out with the bath water here..

@BabyGrooverBug

I'd be interested in hearing if they ever used sex.
For the first 15 years or so of parkrun's existence, almost no one would have thought the sign up page asking "gender: male [] female []" would have meant anything other than sex.

Agree. Any person who seeks to ignore female people’s withdrawal of consent is acting in a way that highlights just how little consent from female people means to them. Even female people who do consent knowing other female people don’t but acting in a way that ignores those female people who don’t consent seem to grasp desperately at excuses while doing so.

”It knocks the men's out by one as well.”

So what. Them knocking male people down a ranking is fair competition, just as it would happen if that male person ran in the male category.

But he didn’t, he ran in the female category.

Just because the overall timing was correct, does not justify in any way that male person running in the female category. If there is a category for female people, it needs to be protected by policy. It is currently not protected at all.

Doesn't matter if only 1 man runs as a woman and comes 186th - he knocks the woman who should be 186th and every other woman below him's results out. They matter just as much as those in the top 3.

It knocks the men's out by one as well.

You only have to look at the amount of men that are OK with breaking the toilets guidance (and therefore the law) to see how any change is as the trans lobby puts it 'unworkable'.

And the sad thing is that the trans lobby can't or won't understand why a man saying no to a woman is a concern.

Doesn't matter if only 1 man runs as a woman and comes 186th - he knocks the woman who should be 186th and every other woman below him's results out. They matter just as much as those in the top 3.

If it's all so inconsequential then TW can register as men, or prefer not to say, can't they?

It is remarkable how many people simply don’t believe that people will answer honestly.

If there are so few male people participating in the female category, how many would not be truthful or choose the ‘prefer not to say’ option if the policy changed?

But they are using Male and Female on the drop down.

Those are sex words, quite clear in meaning. They are factual words. They have the same meaning for animals and plants as well. They are not gender identities. Parkrun has muddled up sex and gender identity in one question. This why it is a mess. It is not clear, it is as bad as the census questions that the ONS had to row back on.

You can’t force them but you can change the category to sex instead of gender and tell
people it’s not compulsory to record their sex but if they choose to it must be sex at birth.

This is the only way to make it fair for women.

I understand that it’s not easy to enforce in a parkrun situation, but neither is age. “Gender” is also impossible to enforce so what’s the problem with changing it to sex?

I think you present a false dichotomy. Parkrun's choices aren't the status quo vs scrapping sex/gender data altogether

I've listed 6 other features that have been removed to keep both sides happy. I see no reason why they'd endure angst to save a 7th. They just want to hold fun runs. they aren't looking to prove a point, they will want to placate both sides and that means ditch it. If it was my responsibility that's what I do.

I'd be interested in hearing if they ever used sex.

I think you present a false dichotomy. Parkrun's choices aren't the status quo vs scrapping sex/gender data altogether (which you rightly say would annoy many female runners).

When I signed up the gender options were male & female. "Gender" here was clearly a synonym for sex. Now the options include, male, female and "another gender identity", so if they shifted their data from sex to gender identity, they can shift it back.

If Parkrun asked for sex then you’d be provided with ‘sex positions’ rather than ‘gender positions’, which are irrelevant in sport. (Will nobody think of the enbies).

Changing to sex would just piss off a different group of people.

The NHS need to know your sex. Parkrun don't. All it does is allow them to provide gender positions. If they make a change it will simply be to remove gender positions. That keeps everyone happy, except actual competitors. But nobody seems to care about us.

The NHS has multiple online forms that ask for sex at birth. There’s a pop up that explains why they ask for that. Nothing stops Parkrun doing something similar. They don’t want to, but let’s not pretend there are masses of logistical or legal reasons why they can’t.

But it would be nice to have it acknowledged that “actual sex” is what is pertinent when it comes to physical sporting potential.

That battle has already been won.

.But they currently encourage people to self-select the sex they would prefer to be.

No they don't. They encourage people to select whatever gender they want which is fine because gender means nothing. As soon as you make it sex, they will be able to select the sex they would prefer to be. Use of gender prevents that.

More male people take part in parkrun than female people. Its about a 60/40 split.

If a % of people identify as the opposite sex, there will be more men in the womens category than women in the mens.

Also, men are, on average faster than women, so those men will be higher up the rankings than the women in the mens category.

You haven’t understood what the supreme court ruling said. They thoroughly considered “actual sex” vs “certificated sex” and where it was important to use “actual sex”. A GRC doesn’t change your actual birth sex.

I agree that you can’t force people to disclose, and also that some trans people will lie. And that checking birth certificates is more than can reasonably be expected .

But it would be nice to have it acknowledged that “actual sex” is what is pertinent when it comes to physical sporting potential. And for Parkrun to indicate that it is their intention to coll XY sex data for this reason. But they currently encourage people to self-select the sex they would prefer to be.

I can see why-the backlash and violence from TRA organisations can be nasty, and it is much less hassle to “be kind” and do a fudge that makes things a bit worse for women. Who don’t threaten violence and tend to just suck it up.

The men at Parkrun would not do the same. If there was some new type of superhuman that performed better than human males, but was allowed to claim to be a human male on the entry form, the men would lose their shit over it.

I agree it would suck, because names are a far worse proxy for sex than gender. That's the point I'm making.

As chance would have it I do have trans women friends (well, colleagues). But they aren't lovely. Or women. So I think you've got me mixed up with someone else.

They are. In your example I was replying to you said the woman's place could potentially be wrong by 2. In that situation a man's place would also be wrong by two. If someone is in the "wrong" category that effects both categories.

How do you count Chris or Alex or Sam? Do you put them in the male category the female category or take turns?

I'm glad you "lovely" transfer friend is lovely but they aren't my lovely friend they are a strange male and by humouring him that his 'is' a woman in parkrun you are encouraging him to believe he could be a woman in other circumstances too.
Groover thinks it's OK for to access the woman category so she probably won't mind if I us the ladies loo. It the thin end of the wedge. If you tell men they can be women sometimes it is much harder to tell them they can't be women in other places.

Why can’t they ask people what sex they are? And be clear it means actual sex, or sex at birth.

1. That will piss the other side off so won't make everyone happy. It would be easier to remove the feature IMHO than change it.

2. You can't lie about gender because it means nothing so gender requires no enforcement. I doubt sex would be enforced either but people could demand enforcement and that just leads to more arguments.

IMHO the best option is let sleeping dogs lie. We'll miss it when it's gone.